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30 June 2014

A bright start to the week. Neon nails just haven't been calling to me lately. I like bright nails don't get me wrong but neon nails can look a bit too much. Especially here when the weather can go from roasting hot to icy cold in a matter of minutes. Neon nails just don't look as good when the weather is crap.

The only polish I used that really benefits from a white base is China Glaze Flip flop fantasy. The formula is shite on it to be frank. I like the colour but trying to make it look good on the nail is incredibly difficult! Thankfully not all of the China Glaze neons are like this because they make some of my favourite polishes.

I started out with 2 coats of white polish on all of my nails. I striped off the middle nails and added on 2 coats of China Glaze Flip flop fantasy around the cuticle, Models own Hedonist to the middle and China Glaze Love's a beach to the tips. I randomly added on the same colours to the pinky and index nails using various sized dotting tools. I think the mix of neons and the white polish peaking through helps to tone down the neon brightness a bit and it's just more fun to do and to look at. I used a Leighton Denny topcoat and it is awful. It does not give nail art a nice look to them at all and it bubbled really badly. Lesson learnt! I'll stick with my Sally Hansen Insta-dri for now.

27 June 2014

Today's Book review is on "The Irish Scissor Sisters" by Mick McCaffrey. It is 304 pages long. Based on the true story of sisters Charlotte and Linda Mulhall and the murder of Farah Swaleh Noor in 2000 in Dublin.

Very few people in Ireland could have gone through life without at least some basic knowledge of the Irish Scissor Sisters. The murder was particularly gruesome and even more so that the murderers were two young women, one of whom was a mother of 4.

The book tells the story of the women and their family life as well as the murder, how it was carried out and how they managed to keep it a secret for so long.

I've had this book for a couple of years now and I finally got around to reading it a week or two ago. I wasn't particularly interested in the case when it emerged but a book's a book! The author tends to repeat the same information a lot to the point where it began to really get on my nerves. I felt the book as a whole was badly written with pieces thrown in wherever there was a gap. McCaffrey goes off on a tangent and although he has a lot of information on that particular story it has absolutely nothing to do with the one he is actually writing about.

Another thing I noticed was the amount of times he contradicts himself when referring to Linda and Charlotte but especially Kathleen, the mother of the two women.

One thing that I feel is particularly unforgivable when you are trying to write a book based on facts is including hearsay from neighbors AFTER the murder has taken place. We all know how much people exaggerate tales when the newspapers come out and they get a bit of money from telling "their side" of the story. The fact that they were able to trust a compulsive liar (Charlotte) goes to show just how reliable their information really is.

McCaffrey used certain expressions and comments that would lead you to believe that Kathleen and Farah were just an ordinary couple who were tragically broken apart by the murder. This is done after he had compiled a detailed list of their histories listing their violent tendencies and criminal behaviour. At times the language used is almost forcing you to think a certain character was good or bad. Books like this should provide unbiased information allowing the reader to make up their own mind as to what the people were like. This is evdent when you look at the pictures. Farah is pictured smiling and laughing while the women are moody and only pictured during the court case.

I felt like John Mulhall, Linda and charlotte's father and Kathleen's ex husband, was badly represented in the book. McCaffrey seems to blame him for the way the women acted saying he was a loving father but did a bad job of raising his kids. He never once mentions the role of Kathleen in their upbringing. Statements like this cannot be made and portrayed as fact, especially when you are only giving one half of the story. Throughout the book McCaffrey also speculates what the women were thinking, thus putting words into their mouths. He mentions "fate" as being a good reason for someones death and frequently calls the women prostitutes as if that is a good way to describe their character. True, they were know for working in that field but you cannot use that as a means of describing them.

Overall I would give The Irish Scissor Sisters by Mick McCaffrey 2 out of 5. I wouldn't see myself picking up another of his books again. I felt that the information given was biased and he clearly had his own thoughts and feelings concerning the people involved which definitely interfered with his judgement. It was poorly put together and the a lot of the information given was either excessively repeated or completely irreverent to the story at hand.

I kept the nail art pretty basic on this one. The book wound me up so much I couldn't be bothered doing a really detailed design. I went with the colour scheme taken from the cover of the book. I started off with 2 coats of a white nail polish. Once that was dry I divided the nail with striping tape and painted one half with Essence Black is Back and the other with Catrice Caught on the red carpet.

The red is a lot deeper in person. It's a blood red and it's very pretty! I topped it off with a clear topcoat. I love this style of manicure on short nails. I think it adds some length to them and it's really fun to mix and match colours. I'll be the first to admit I'm not great at pairing colours but sure it's something to work on at least :P

26 June 2014

Jason Mraz is one of my favourite artists. His music is very laid back and relaxing and very uplifting. The "Love is a four letter word" album is one of my all-time favourites. I adore almost every single one of the songs which is very unusual for me. I was delighted to hear he was releasing a new album entitled "Yes!" on July 15th although I have been a bit iffy with the songs so far. I'm coming around to them now and they are catchy. It just a different tone compared to his last one. I'm hoping the rest of the album is just as good. I have to say I really like that it's all acoustic and Raining Jane are pretty good! Seeing as I did a manicure based on the previous album I thought I may as well do it for the upcoming one too!

I'm not entirely happy with the way this turned out. It is based on the cover of the album . I started off with 3 coats of Sinful Colors Sugar Rush (light blue) Then I used Barry m Blueberry ice cream and Peach Melba, Nyc Lexington Yellow, Models own Dream Stream, Catrice Blues brothers vol II and Have an ice day. I used Essence Black is back for the bird and a plain white polish for the other nails. I knew this would be hard to do but I threw caution to the wind and gave it a bash anyway.

25 June 2014

A bit of an OTT manicure but one I've been wanting to try for a while. I rarely wear my topper polishes but when I do I am obsessed with them. I'm pretty sure this is 2 coats of Sinful Colors Folly. I can't remember exactly but it doesn't look like the other Sinful Colors polish I own. The pink shimmer topper is Catrice Holo? Que tal. The accent nail has 2 coats of Essence Night in vegas.

I wish I had gone with a different base colour but other than that I'm pretty happy with it! I am a bit disappointed with Night in vegas in general. I thought the flakies would all be different colours but they look the same no matter what the lighting is like. I think it would be best paired with a darker polish. I heard Essie Shine of the times and GOSH rainbow are far better flakies so I'll keep an eye out for them in the future.

If you have any flakie recommendations do let me know in the comments! I'd really appreciate it :)

24 June 2014

This week we were inspired by a drink. This was an easy one for me! Club Zero raspberry just came out in Ireland a couple of weeks ago and it is amazing. It has a true raspberry flavour and it is so refreshing. Pretty much everyone here is obsessed with it and we are on the hunt for the big 2 liter bottles (Supervalue were supposed to have them but as always they are a disappointment and didn't bother getting it in stock!) This is great for the bog. Just pop it in a bog hole and it'll be as cold as ice when you take a break. It's been great over the last week or two with the heat we've been having here.

I started off with 2 coats of plain white polish. Then using a thin brush I painted on "Club Zero" Nyc High line green. The word "Raspberry" and the raspberry nail art are done in Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever. The orange is Nails inc Atomic. I topped it off with a glossy topcoat and that's all there is to it! Raspberry are fecking hard to paint by the way.

23 June 2014

A deep navy creme may not be what pops into your head when you think of Summer but Lancome Nuit D'Azur (555) really comes to life in the sun. It almost looks indigo in certain lighting so it could be considered a "blurple". This is part of the new limited edition Summer makeup collection from lancome. There are 3 polishes in this collection, Nuit D'azur (as pictured) Marine blue (a gorgeous cobalt blue) and Golden Riviera (a shimmery gold).

I have on 2 coat of Nuit D'Azur. The formula is flawless and it went on so smoothly. Dry time was great and it is incredibly glossy on its own. I added on a topcoat in these pictures to smooth out the nail art. I'm not normally a huge fan of the higher end polishes but I have to say the Lancome vernis in love polishes are well made and the colours are stunning.

I freehanded the lancome Symbol of the single gold rose on my ring finger using Catrice Goldfinger. I thought it was a bit odd that they went for 2 shades of blue and then included a gold polish. Gold actually compliments blues beautifully. I would never have thought of putting the two together!

Lancome Nuit D'Azur is available at Lancome counters from July 2014. It costs €19 for a 6ml bottle.

20 June 2014

This weeks Book Look is another one from Karin Slaughter's Will Trent series. This is number 3 in the series and I believe there are 9 in total. This is a long one at 558 pages. I bought my copy from The Book Depository.

Dr Sara Linton is recovering from a traumatic loss when she is thrown head first into a police investigation concerning the torture of a young woman. Here she meets Special agent Will Trent and his partner Faith Mitchell. Although they each have their own problems to ideal with, they pull together in the hopes of stopping the madman from reaching his next victim.

Karin Slaughter is one of my favourite authors so I had high hopes for Undone. I found it to be a very slow paced novel. There is a long prologue, longer than I thought was necessary if I'm honest. The story itself is interesting but I wasn't gripped by it. I couldn't relate to any of the characters (aside from the main ones: Trent, Mitchell and Linton). I think Slaughter made the characters deliberately unlikable so I found it hard to feel anything for them despite the horrific circumstances they found themselves in. It made little difference to me if they lived or died which is not the way you want to feel when reading a novel. You want to be torn between reading a few pages ahead to see what happens and holding off and seeing how the story progresses naturally.

I found it hard to believe the identity of the killer and the circumstances that surrounded their unveiling. It did make sense and it was well thought out but their entrance into the story was far too easy. The end of Undone was lacklustre at best. You could almost say word for word what was going to happen before it did. I did enjoy getting to know Sara Linton a bit better as I believe she plays a pretty big part later on in the series. I was happy to see Faith and Will working together a but better but Faith came across as a bit stupid at times which is surprising given her occupation! She is supposed to be one of the best cops but she makes a lot of rookie mistakes in Undone which kind of put me off of her at times. As with the other books from the Will Trent series, Undone frequently features scenes of torture.

Overall I would give it 4 out of 5. I enjoyed the story a lot despite some of its flaws. I really enjoy the Will Trent series. I like his character a lot and his relationships with the other main characters are constantly evolving and you learn so much more about them as you read along. If you liked the previous books in the Will Trent series then you will enjoy it. Even if you haven't read them and you like Detective Thrillers I'd say give it a go!

I based my nails on the design from the Spine of the book. The same colours are pretty much used on the entire cover but I think the spine is the most striking part. I always like to get the nicer looking book covers when I buy a book. The international books tend to differ from the UK and the US releases.

I started off with 3 coats of Essence You belong to me. When that was dry I striped off the top of the nail and added on Essence Black is back. On the tip of the nails I sponged on Essence Rich and pretty. Finally I freehand the fence with plain black acrylic paint. The fence was the hardest part! I could not keep my hand still enough to get a nice neat line. Thankfully the fence on the cover is fairly old and rickety looking so it looks close enough :P

I really enjoy doing these Book Look manicures. It's unbelievable how inspiring book covers can be and they make some really unique nail art designs! Obviously some are more suitable to everyday wear than others but it means you have a fun story behind each of your manicures.

19 June 2014

I've been meaning to do this review for a while now. A while ago I ordered from the Online retailer "Cloud10 Beauty". They are an Irish based company that stocks a whole variety of make-up, skincare and most importantly, nail polish. One of the great things I noticed about the site is the fact that they get the latest OPI collections in stock more often than not.

I decided to order 2 of the nail polishes from the Brazil collection that I had my eye on for a while and it gave me the opportunity to try out Cloud 10 beauty and compare it to other online shops I've used before. The only downside to my order ended up being the polishes themselves as they had terribly disappointing formulas! Obviously that's more to do with OPI than it is Cloud 10 beauty :P

The nail polishes arrived in a sturdy cardboard box, well wrapped in both bubble wrap and paper. I was delighted with this as we all know the post office isn't exactly gentle with the parcels. I ordered at around 3.30- 4.00pm and the parcel arrived the next day! Incredibly fast shipping. Normally I end up waiting at least 3-4 days before I get the package so I was delighted with this. The team are lovely and reply to messages both through email and on twitter very quickly. Their customer service is incredible which makes a huge difference when ordering online. They often have deals and discounts on most of their products and you get free shipping when you spend over €15 and you get to chose a free little sample to go with your order. For my first time dealing with them I'm very pleased with the service I was given. I would really recommend having a browse through their site as they ship worldwide. I always like to support and Irish Company if I can and I have to say Cloud 10 Beauty is one of the most efficient company I have come across recently.

18 June 2014

I have to say I'm doing pretty well with the whole "wearing old polishes that I don't often pick out" trend I'm on lately. The latest polish I picked out was Nails inc Bluebell. I put on 2 coats of Bluebell before I went to bed one night. This is a lovely cornflower blue with a great formula. It's a plain creme polish which I like and it dries pretty quickly. The main bugbear I have with the polish is the fact that it chips after a few hours even with a really good non-chip topcoat on top. It's infuriating! For such an expensive brand you'd expect to get a least a couple of days wear out of the polish before it started chipping. To get a few more days wear out of it I decided to do a half-moon manicure.

On top of the 2 coats of Nails Inc Bluebell and the 1 coat of topcoat I added on 2 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Blue Streak. I used some of those hole punch reinforcement stickers that I ordered from the Born Pretty store. They worked pretty well but you don't get much in a packet so I'd spend my money elsewhere and get a bigger packet in the future.

Even on short nails I think they turned out pretty well! I will say that I used the same reinforcements on my watermelon nails and they pulled the polish completely off of my nail which was really annoying. I had to start those nails again which was not a fun process after getting so far ahead with them. I'm not sure if the topcoat stopped the polish from pealing off but I thought it was worth a mention. I really like half-moon manicures, I never thought they would suit my nails now that they are shorter but they really do!

17 June 2014

After seeing the prompt for this weeks Twinsie Tuesday I couldn't think of anything but the Grease Song "Summer Nights". I haven't seen the movie so I based my nail art on the music video! We were all joking about this on Facebook so I thought it would be fun to give it a go. I kind of want to see the film now.

I based the manicure on Sandy and Danny and the outfits they wore during that particular song. For Sandy's blouse I used 2 coats of Illamasqua Monogamous for her skin, a plain white polish for her blouse and OPI Skull and glossbones for the outline. Danny's outfit was far simpler with Essence Black is back for the leather jacket, the same white, black,grey and nude polishes I used for Sandy.

The black and pink nails are based on the 2 groups- The pink Ladies and The T Birds. I used Barry M dragon Fruit for the pink (3-4 coats!) and Essence Black is back (2 coats)

Check out the other ladies and their posts for this week! Did any of ye guess the manicure from the title? ;)

16 June 2014

Today's manicure was a bit of a fail. I came across a couple of watermelon themed books and pictures and I thought it would make a pretty summery manicure. The execution wasn't perfect to be fair but I think it worked out grand for a first go.

Again I used the Born Pretty store nail art brushes. I had to cut a few of them down and thinned them out. I have used them a couple of times now and I find them a bit hard to use with nail polish. I used them on the rind or green part of the watermelon and I just couldn't get a good grasp of them. They aren't the dearest of brushes at $5.96 for 12. If you can cut them down to a thinner size then I'm sure a more detailed nail art look can be achieved. So far I haven't been able to do this but if I succeed I will update ye all on that! I have a coupon code at the side if ye want to get 10% off.

The brushes look ok in the packet but once you start to use them they fan out quite a bit so trimming them down is the best option if you want to do some kind of detailed nail art.
I used a scissor to trim all of the down. I get the odd lose hair so they can shed a little bit. They wouldn't be my go-to bruhes,I have thinner ones that work better for me. At the end of the day it's really whatever works best for you and the type of nails you like to create.. What might be a holy-grail item for one person may not necessarily work well for you.

I have on 2 coats of Models own Hedonist as my base, This polish is just as bright in person as it looks in the photos! It's a proper neon with a great formula. For the rind I have China Glaze I'm wife the lifeguard on my middle and ring fingers. On my pinky and index I went with Catrice Run Forest Run. I used the Catrice on top of I'm with the lifeguard and visa-versa to give the watermelon effect but it didn't really come out as nice as I had envisioned. I dotted some white polish around the nail which helped a lot and I did the same with Essence Black is back around the tips (for the pips)

Overall, not my best but definitely not my worst attempt! I'll try a different strategy in the future and see how that fairs out.

11 June 2014

I've had Essence Prince Charming from the Limited Edition Snow white collection for a fair while now but I don't really use it. I love the holographic glitters in it and blue is one of my favourite colours so you'd think I'd be flying through it. The formula is great (as with most glitter toppers I've found) and one coat is more than enough for me.

I paired it with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon manicure in Back to the Fushcia. I didn't bother with a topcoat seeing as it would kill the holographic glitters in Prince Charming. As with most glitter, this looks so much better in person. The sparkle from the holographic always gets lost on camera unless it's out of focus. I would normally put blue glitters over a blue polish but I think they look just as good over any colour.

10 June 2014

I was dreading this challenge! 3D nail art is not my forté at all. I kind of copped out in the end but I think it turned out pretty well in the end. I would definitely wear it again. I've been wearing Barry m Berry Ice Cream for the last 2 weeks. I took it off when it chipped and just painted it straight back on again. I really like this polish but it needed a little something something.

After Berry ice cream had dried I added on one coat of Lac Attack Bunny Poop. Then I striped off the nail and painted on 2 coats of Barry m Greenberry. Before that tried I popped on 2 little studs that I got from Born Pretty Store a while back. I went for black and silver on all the nails apart from the ring finger. I went for a grass green and a lime green stud. It's like a very, very subtle accent nail ;)

That's all there is to it for this week! Check out the other posts below.

09 June 2014

A picture heavy post today. I've been trying to use polishes that I wouldn't normally go for, not because I don't like them but I like sticking to a certain section of nail polishes. I switch them up every once in a while but I like sticking to what I know. Today I went with 2 polishes that haven't really seen the light of day in a long time.

I started out out with 3 coats of Catrice Iron Mermaiden. This is a pretty sheer polish but it is opaque in 3-4 coats (depending on your nail length). It shifts from gold to purple and it is a lot more noticeable in real life. I'm not the biggest fan of duochrome polishes so I added on a coat of Essence Gold Fever. This is basically a less dense version of China Glaze Electrify with smaller glitter.

I think the purple shines through the most.It does come up more gold in certain lighting but purple is by far the dominant colour. Iron Mermaiden is a nice polish but it's not something I would wear too often. It's a bit dreary especially in the summer. It might be ok as an accent nail but it definitely won't work as a full manicure on me.